A Beginnings Story

Welcome to my music, art, and thoughts blog, Music Notes! I am BRI, and I'm so glad you're here.

The road to creating a cool and smoothly-running website with a blog has been long and choppy for me, as it is lots of new information, and I've taken plenty of months off during the "learning process." I'm here now, trying to figure everything out still, and I thought for the first story I share with you, I might as well start from the beginning!

I am a musician. At my core, I think I have always wanted to be a musician, and this is the story of how I discovered that artist inside of me and how I was introduced to playing...

Five-year-old me at the piano with my little sister, Nikki!

My parents always tell the story something like this: "When Bri was just a toddler she started asking for a guitar. She talked about it all the time, but kids talk about all kinds of things, and how were we supposed to know if she would be serious about it, for more than a passing child's idea? She was too small to play guitar and too young for us to tell if she knew she really wanted one. She kept talking about it, though, so for Christmas we bought her a kid's ukulele - a less expensive starting investment and smaller for a little girl - to see if she liked it. She carried that thing everywhere with her! She played on it all day long, even though she had no idea how to actually play! Then she kept asking for a guitar. Some of our friends recommended getting her in piano lessons before guitar because piano is a better introductory instrument. It makes more sense for a beginner, especially a kid. We already had a piano, and we wanted to give Bri the basics of music and let her start learning to play, so we signed her up. She took lessons every week for a few months until we moved to a new city. Lessons stopped for a while, due to the move and transition. Bri still wanted a guitar. Finally, for her eighth birthday, we decided to take her to Guitar Center and help her pick one out."

I got a Baby Martin guitar (3/4 scale) that day, and my dad and mom found me a guitar teacher. I remember being SO excited! I started lessons the next week.

But the first instrument of my very own was that ukulele I was given when I was around five. I've since named him Otis! (Instruments need names; some instruments are easier to find a name for than others.)

Here's a slightly more recent shot of me, and that's Otis!

Before Otis, I played around on the family piano, with no real instruction. This is why I say I've had a deep-seated love of music my whole life long. I was lucky enough to grow up in a family where it's valued and appreciated, and I was exposed to it from the beginning. My dad plays fiddle, and my mom plays drums and piano. I am so grateful to them for everything they've given me musically and for all the constant support I've had in this dream of mine! It really is incredible, thinking back on how they started me out and all the ways they kept with it for years for me!

Music matters in so many ways. It has made all the difference in my life, and I'm passionate about sharing it with other people. The shared human experience of being alive and giving and receiving joy and love, through a connection in music, is a powerful, fantastic thing! I started playing when I was just a kid, and look how far it has taken me.